Kinsley's ShopRite in Brodheadsville recently teamed up with the Pleasant Valley Elementary School to provide hundreds of healthy meals for children. The project is part of the ShopRite Partners in Caring program.

"We chose September because it is National Hunger Action month," said Rhianna Cenci, dietitian for Kinsley's.According to Valerie Rudawski, dean of students at Pleasant Valley Elementary, ShopRite allowed the school to set up tables at the store where volunteers packed bags for the students to take home for "long weekends.""Our Healthy Happy Meals program benefited over 40 students throughout the year in 2014-15. We are anticipating this number to double this year due to awareness of all the support we have to offer our families in need. We could not address this need without all of the support from ShopRite, our faculty, parents and the community," Rudawski said.Cenci chose the items to go into the bags based on nutrition and expiration dates. Each bag contained a juice box, a bottle of water, peanut butter, a can of tuna, apple sauce, a granola bar, fruit snacks, raisins and two packages of oatmeal.Each bag represents two breakfasts and two lunches for a child who might not have enough food otherwise on those days when school is not in session.The items in the bag cost $3.50 to put together. Shoppers bought the bags for $3 each with ShopRite contributing the difference.According to Cenci 495 tickets were sold. Cenci said that there is some discussion of making this a twice a school year event.ShopRite Partners in Caring is a collective of all of the ShopRite stores throughout the country. In the month of September the collective raised $1.3 million for local food banks. Kinsley raised $17,000 and will be donating that money locally.Parents or guardians who are interested in acquiring the Healthy Happy Meals for their children need to contact the guidance department at Pleasant Valley Elementary to make arrangements.